And You Can Have This Heart To Break
by mzmtiger
Summary: And every time I've held a rose, it seems I only felt the thorns. A look at the life and loves of Nate Ford. Angsty, but with a happy ending.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm a sucker for angsty fictional boys and their angsty pasts. And Nate Ford fits into that perfectly. So, I write fic about his angsty past. I'm physically unable to prevent myself from being drawn to these boys and their angsty angsty-ness. Title and song excerpts from the Billy Joel song 'And So It Goes'.**

_In every heart there is a room_

_A sanctuary safe and strong_

Nate Ford falls in love for the first time when he's 13 years old. Her name is Melody, and she's been his best friend for his entire life, because her apartment is right next to his, and they're moms take turns baby-sitting, Nate's mom on the weekends, and Melody's mom watching them during the week before she works the night shift at the hospital.

When they're seven they discover the door that leads to the roof, and they spend most of their time up there, sneaking off whenever they can to look at Boston, sprawling out in front of them. They'll sit and stare, legs kicked out in front of them, planning their futures around the imaginary identities they've assigned to the buildings they can see.

As they get older, Nate will bring his guitar with him, only because a piano won't fit up the stairs, and they'll stay up there until the sun stains the edge of the city red and the pinks and blues spread up and up and up until the colors become the stars they can't see. But Nate reads books on the constellations and the planets, and traces them with his finger as he strums on the open strings.

She'll rest her head on his stomach so she can feel his laugh, issuing from deep inside him as she retells story after story from their past. The two kids she tells about seem so much more fantastic and magical in her stories then Nate ever feels, so he hangs on to her every word and hopes that one day he'll be as interesting as Mel makes him sound.

Two weeks after her thirteenth birthday, Mel tells him she's moving. Her mom has got a new job in California, of all places, and they're leaving in two weeks. Nate wants to beg her to stay, to live on their rooftop with him and tell him stories about the boy he only vaguely recognizes as himself, to stay and be a part of that future they have all planned out among the red brick buildings in the distance and the stars they've created for themselves. But he doesn't. He just lets her go.

It's her last night in town, and her apartment is an overcrowded clutter of boxes that serve only as painful reminders to their impending separation, so they escape to the roof, but the sanctuary doesn't feel like comfort tonight. His fingers are clumsy against the strings and her stories hold none of their usual sparkle, and since there's no future to talk about, the buildings are just buildings and the stars are lost to the streetlights. So they sit in silence, her head on his shoulder because there's no laughter to feel tonight.

"I'm going to miss you," he says when the silence becomes too heavy to breathe and he has to say something or explode, and she nods against her shoulder.

"I'm going to miss you more," she says, and he can no longer tell if she's joking or if she means that, so he just stays silent. When she turns her head to look up at him, brown eyes big and wide and sad, he falls hard and fast and he can't stop it.

He touches his lips to hers, because he figures that's what he's supposed to do in this situation, and her hand comes up to touch his cheek lightly. Her eyes disappear as his close, and he wonders if hers do the same. It only lasts a few seconds before he pulls away, and sees that her eyes are closed. He already misses her.

She leaves early the next day, and he's still mostly asleep as he hugs her one last time and watches her carry one last box down the stairs, and then she's gone, and he leans against her door and whispers, "I love you." No one hears him, and he's glad.

Weeks pass and become months, and he still misses her, but soon he no longer falls asleep wishing for her stories. They're just memories now, faded photographs inside his head, hidden by soft sort of kisses and 'I love you's whispered to no one.

_But if my silence made you leave _

_Then that would be my worst mistake _

_So I will share this room with you _

_And you can have this heart to break._


	2. Chapter 2

**Song excerpts still from 'And So It Goes' by Billy Joel.**

_And this is why my eyes are closed _

_It's just as well for all I've seen_

When he meets Julia, he likes her instantly. She's nice and pretty and she can sing like an angel, and he's only known her for fifteen minutes when he realizes that he loves her. He's known her a week when he asks her out, all nervous fifteen year old boy, hand running through his curls, meeting her eyes sparingly as he suddenly feels the need to study every detail of his shoes.

She says yes, and for a little while, things are good. Julia's his first real girlfriend, and she's interested in all the same things he is, except for sports, but he thinks that's just girls in general, so he forgives her for that, and for everything else as well. She comes to his freshmen football and basketball games and cheers, even if she really doesn't understand it, and they get all the solos in the freshmen choir, and even some in the older choirs, because they both have that ridiculous natural talent that even people who are better singers are jealous of. There aren't many better singers.

They spend nights on the roof of her building, her hands running over his sore shoulders as he writes novels and songs in his head for her, leaving this ordinary existence behind for a place where they are stars. He still remembers the constellations, but he never points them out to Julia, because his future no longer belongs among them. His future is here, with her, gentle fingers on his shoulders and angel voice in his ear. She says 'I love you' first, and he follows immediately, his long fingers running over her face to feel the shape of her lips as she repeats it over and over again.

They are cliché and he doesn't mind, because this cliché is what he wants. And then his mom dies in April.

He misses several weeks of school, but the teachers don't worry, because he's Nathan Ford, and he's smart, as in _smart_, emphasis placed on the description of his brilliance. He's quick and witty and charming and always knows the answer, and even if he doesn't, he figures it out faster then anyone else they've taught in a long while.

And he wants to scream when that happens, wants them to stop looking at him like he's Edison or Einstein. He's broken and hurting and all the brains in the world won't bring his mom back. But he doesn't let his grades drop, because that would devastate his mom, _if she was still alive_. It becomes the mantra that plays in his head.

And he hates this cliché with Julia, because how can anything be this right when his mom is dead and his dad is drunk? Her voice grates in his ears and he shrugs off her fingers, and when she finally confronts him, he tells her he doesn't love her anymore, and his heart shatters in a hundred itty-bitty tiny little pieces that he doesn't think he'll ever be able to repair.

The summer sun catches her tears, blonde hair died red from the horizon, and she's never looked more beautiful, but he just turns and walks away. He's too sad to deal with a broken heart. He whispers 'I love you' in his bedroom that night, but his heart is not repaired and he gives up.

He hates himself for how sad she looks the next time he sees her, but he's too numb with sadness to feel much else.

_And this is why my eyes are closed _

_It's just as well for all I've seen _

_And so it goes, and so it goes _

_And you're the only one who knows_


	3. Chapter 3

**Still Billy Joel's "And So It Goes".**

_To heal the wounds from lovers past _

_Until a new one comes along_

Throughout high school, he dates plenty of girls, because he's smart and charming and good-looking. He plays three sports and is the lead in the choir half way through sophomore year and he gets straight A's like he's still in kindergarten.

His father is drunk most of the time, and if he's not hitting Nate, he's holding him to his chest and telling him how much he loves him, and how sorry he is about everything. After the tenth time this happens, Nate can't even feel his father's arms around him anymore.

And those stupid games continue, the cards going round and round and round in an endless cycle, and it's the only place that Nate feels stupid, unable to find the right answer. He's not sure if he hates it or appreciates it. He tries to remind himself that he can't find the right answer because the right answer isn't there, but he keeps playing the game, because maybe if he can find that damn queen his dad will respect him, admire him, really love him like he says.

And he still hates himself for the look on Julia's face. But he figures out that if he sings loud enough, any girl in the choir will date him, and if he plays well enough, any cheerleader will date him, and the rest just fall to his charm. He's angry and sad and he falls in love so many times that the pieces of his heart left over every time he breaks up with another girl don't even bother rearranging themselves. They just sit in his chest in a heavy, sharp lump.

He figures out that if he wears collared shirts and leaves the first few buttons undone, girls will slip their hands into the neck of his shirt and run their hands along his collarbone. They'll whisper 'I love you' against his neck, and he'll mumble it back into their hair, meaning it with every fiber of his sad heart, even if he only means it in the moments that it takes the words to fall from his lips.

He never lies with those words. He's the good guy around school, because how can he break your heart with eyes like those?

His mom was a music teacher before she died. By the time he's sixteen, he can play just about anything you want on anything you give him. He's tall and lanky and good at sports without trying that hard. He's smarter then the next person by a mile and always willing to lend a hand if he's not busy with all his activities. He's quiet and charming and good-looking, and if he didn't hate himself so much, his life would be easy.

And every time I've held a rose

It seems I only felt the thorns

And so it goes, and so it goes

And so will you soon I suppose


	4. Chapter 4

**I still don't own the wonderful angsty-ness that is Nate Ford, and I don't own the song lyrics used in this chapter, which come from the song "Jesus Christ" by Brand New. And I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, because I didn't have a lot of good ideas for it, but I figured that this was a fairly important part of Nate's life, so I wanted to write something for it. I hope it's not too horrible.**

_Well Jesus Christ, I'm alone again_

_So what did you do those three days you were dead?_

_Cause this problem's gonna last more than the weekend._

He wants to join the church to feel closer to his mother and farther from his father. His father hasn't been near a church in 30 years, and he still has this childish vision of heaven, where God lives in a huge mansion and his mom owns the house down the street.

He doesn't feel any connection here. He feels closer to God when he's alone and quiet, but even during solitary study he never feels alone, and the world seems so much louder now. He makes two friends, Paul and Willie, but Paul is so crazily committed that it kind of scares Nate, and Willie is just crazy.

And his teachers all insist on calling him Nathan. He'll remind them every few weeks, beg and plead with them, insist that his name is not _Nathan_, it's just _Nate_, one quick beautiful syllable that his father has never, ever uttered. But he cannot give them a reason when they ask why, because how do you tell your teachers they can't call you by your given name because _that's what your father calls you, and you hate him._

_Nathan, Nathan, Nathan_, all he ever hears is his father's voice, and the words that accompanied it. Disappointed words always, that broke over Nate's head in wave after wave of sadness and anger. His father can't love him, because _Nathan's_ the good boy, his mother's son, the boy who reminds him so much of the woman he loved and lost, and Nate hates, hates, hates it, because, God, all he's trying to do is be a good son, a good man, like his mom wanted him to be.

And he still misses his mom so much that the idea of doing anything other then trying to be the perfect son for her makes his already ridiculously fragile heart feel like someone hit it with a sledgehammer. He hates his dad for making him feel like this, and being like he is, and for the almost goddamn _sneer_ in his voice: _Nathan, the good boy_.

He's always had trouble sleeping, but it's now that he begins to officially classify himself as an insomniac. The tiredness seems to invade his brain most nights, but he can't push it out with sleep, so he just sits in his room, reading his Bible. Most nights, he can't even see the individual words, but the black and red words blur together into something abstract and beautiful at 3 AM, so he doesn't mind so much. He thinks that maybe that's what the face of God will look like when he finally sees it, a heavy blur of red and black that fills his vision until he finally descends into the blackness that marks the first sleep he's gotten in days.

He makes it six months, two weeks, three days before he leaves, before he packs up his stuff and throws it into his Dodge. Nate tells Willie, who never calls him Nathan, but he doesn't tell Paul, who sometimes lectures him on letting go of his demons and patching things up with his father, turning his life over to Jesus and being free.

Nate would just roll his eyes, but he really wanted to tell Paul to go screw himself, because he's so suburban white middle class with PTO parents and a dog named Buddy and a damn white picket fence that it's almost sad, and Nate likes his demons just where they are, because they've been that way for a long time, and are really the only things counter-balancing his insanity these days. Plus, Paul routinely slips up and calls him Nathan, and Nate kind of hates it.

And he sure as hell doesn't tell his father, because he can hear his voice in his head well enough to imagine it, over and over and over, like some mix-tape from hell that's stuck on repeat, and that's bad enough. And Willie's reaction is perfect, just a shrug like he knew it was inevitable and a good luck wish.

He doesn't know where he's going, but he's sure as hell glad he's going there.

_Do I divide and fall apart?_

_Cause my bright is too slight to hold back all my dark_

_And the ship went down in sight of land_

_And at the gates does Thomas ask to see my hands_


	5. Chapter 5

**Along with imagining Nate as having a very angsty childhood and life, even before Sam's death, I've always as imagined him as kind of a loner and a heartbreaker. So that's where this chapter comes from.**

And so it goes, and so it goes

_And so will you soon I suppose_

He drives until he runs out of money and gas somewhere in Arizona, parks outside a bar and grabs his guitar out of the trunk. It doesn't take much to convince the pretty bar maid to give him a chance, just a quick smile and a flash of the guitar case, blue eyes barely peeking out from under his fedora. She points to the stage and says he's more then welcome to play for tips. He makes almost $40 that first night, and could easily take off, but stays, because the waitress smiles at him the whole time and he's falling in love all over again.

He stays for a month before he tells her that he can't stay, that he's restless and yearning for the open road, and it's not that he doesn't love her, it's just that he can't stay any longer. He quotes Shakespeare and hopes she understands, and she does and he hates it. And he does the same thing to every girl, falls in love with them, stays for a while, asks for forgiveness because he just can't stay. They always grant it, and he hates it, hates himself and this goddamn broken heart of his.

But how can he break your heart with eyes like those and a voice like that? He's just scared and lonely and he does love you, but if you love something, let it go. So they let him go.

Every time, he wishes one of them, just once, would slap him, call him on this bullshit and make him stay. Tell him that Shakespeare doesn't apply here, and if you love something, _someone_, then you stay with them and try to make it work, that he's not going to find the answer on his own. But they all just touch his arm gently, hug him tightly, watch him as he walks away, yell after him to call if he ever finds the time. He hates himself even more, and the shards of his heart seem to poke painfully into his chest.

On nights when he's traveling, he sleeps in his car because that's easier and cheaper then a motel, and it's not like he was rolling in cash before. If he's anywhere north of about Kentucky, he's got to sleep under three blankets and wear two sweatshirts and a pair of sweatpants to avoid freezing, and he still wakes up stiff and cold.

He doesn't eat or sleep a lot during this time, and by the time he's been at it for six months, he's lost almost 30 pounds off an already slim frame. Sometimes, he'll wake up in the morning from a rare night of full sleep, and consider not getting up at all. But if he doesn't get up, he'll starve to death right here in his Dodge Dart. And he can hear his father's voice in his head telling him that starving in the backseat of his shitty little car is a weak way to die, so he forces himself to get up and stumble into the nearest diner.

He'll smile and joke and shiver just a tiny bit, and the waitress will usually give him a sympathetic look and offer him some free coffee and toast while he decides what to order. Nate will try to decline, but he'll find a plate shoved in front of him and the stern waitress telling him to eat up and put some meat on those bones.

And he keeps playing in bars, sometimes as a fill in for someone in the normal band, because he really can play any instrument you hand him, and sometimes just alone on the stage with his guitar or a piano, his worn fedora left on the edge of the stage to collect tips. He'll make $50 on an okay night, and three times that on a good night. One guy tells him that it's because he looks like a goddamn drowned puppy as he drops a twenty in the hat.

And everywhere he goes, he questions and listens and wonders aloud until he finds the answer. Nate finds that out here, in dusty small town bars and the open road, that his curiosity can't be sated, that his intense desire to know at least a little bit about everything has only grown. Many nights will find him sitting at the bar with one of the regulars, curls messy and sweaty after playing three or four whole sets, head resting against his fist, beer in one hand as he listens to whatever story they want to tell him.

He thinks that maybe this is what life will be like from now on, good, cheap beer and old men's stories and music and beautiful girls who's hearts he would always break. And then he met Amy.

_So I would choose to be with you_

_As if the choice were mine to make_

But you can make decisions too

_And you can have this heart to break_

**The part about Nate being curious comes from his line in the pilot where he says he "Picks up some things along the way" and Hardison responds that he "picks up a lot of things". I got the feeling that that's been kind of a lifelong thing for Nate. Lyrics come from "And So It Goes".**


	6. Chapter 6

**I'm sorry this update took so long, but marching band has kind of swallowed my life, and this chapter really didn't start flowing until just recently. I hope you enjoy it, as we move closer and closer to canon-ish area.**

_In every heart there is a room_

_A sanctuary safe and strong_

_To heal the wounds from lovers past_

_Until a new one comes along_

Nate isn't expecting anything like Amy when he stumbles into the small diner along the Washington coast. But then again, no one really expects something like Amy to suddenly become part of their life.

He hasn't eaten in two days, and hasn't slept in over four, and when he finally collapses on a stool at the long counter, Nate wonders if his father would think this is an acceptable place to die. At the thought of his father, his hand clenches over the postcard he'd bought in San Francisco, meaning to send it to the old man all the way across the country, but then realized he didn't even _like_ his dad enough to waste the time, energy and money that it would require. So now he carries it around in the pocket, as if he needs a reminder of how much he hates his dad.

"You going to order anything, Ranger?" says a voice from somewhere above where he's resting his head against the counter. He looks up, and is met with intense, laughing green eyes staring back. When he's finally able to tear his eyes away from hers, he sees that the green eyes are paired with blond hair that looks like a halo even in the crappy diner lights and a pretty smile that currently looks more like a smirk.

"What's good?" he asks, glancing away from her face to check that his outfit is not what made her call him 'Ranger'.

"Everything," she says seriously, with just a hint of a smile as she hands him a menu, and he can't help but smile back. Glancing down at the menu and then at the dimly lit clock behind the counter, he orders a cheeseburger with fries and slides the menu back to her. She seems almost offended by his unoriginality, but disappears into the kitchen anyway.

When she returns, she smiles at him and slides a bowl of soup in front of him. He raises his eyebrows and says, "This isn't a burger."

She just laughs and responds, "The burger will be ready in a minute, but you look about ready to fall off that stool. Eat up, I don't want to have to haul your sorry ass to the hospital."

Nate smiled, and obediently took a bite of the soup, never taking his eyes off of her. The soup was amazing, but he was too distracted by the girl, still leaning on the counter, watching him as he ate, to really enjoy it. "Why'd you call me Ranger?" he asked after a while, spooning up some more soup.

She gave another loud laugh before she answered, "You look like the Lone Ranger after Tonto got smart and ditched him." She raised her eyebrows, as if challenging him to disagree with her description.

"Well, I've got a real name, you know. It's Nate, Nate Ford," he said as he slid the soup bowl across the counter. She smiled as she replaced the bowl with a plate and spoke, "I'm Amy, Amy Wright. My dad owns the diner."

"Nice to meet you, Amy," he said, extending his hand across the counter, ignoring the burger he'd been so looking forward to one second ago to clasp her warm hand in his.

"Nice to meet you, Nate," she said, and he's falling hard and he doesn't try to stop it.

_I spoke to you in cautious tones_

_You answered me with no pretense_

_And still I feel I said too much_

_My silence is my self defense_

And for just over a year, things are good. Things are amazing. Amy is everything that he could have ever wished for and more, and it's as though someone flipped some switch inside him, because for the first time since he was sixteen, he doesn't want to run away. He wants to stay right here, right next to Amy forever.

He buses tables with her during the day, and studies the stars and her eyes at night. For his 25th birthday, she buys him a new guitar and makes him play for her, his voice still wonderful, even though he's left the crowds and the bars behind. Nate brushes her hair back from her eyes and kisses her softly and it's as if all his demons disappear in smoke.

She teases him, and calls him 'Ranger' and 'Boston' and 'Kerouac', and he enjoys the playfulness of their relationship as much as he enjoys the intense silences, late nights in the diner, stealing hot kisses behind the counter as they try and hide from the few customers left at that hour.

Amy whispers 'I love you' against his lips underneath the stars with their shirts lying in the grass next to them. He whispers it back; putting every emotion he's ever felt into the words and his kiss, his fingers trailing over her hips. Nate wants to leave marks in the shapes of his fingerprints on her pale skin and kiss away all her fears and doubts, and whisper 'I love you' forever.

It's perfect, and since Nate hasn't had anything better then decent in years, he doesn't ever want to leave. Until he does.

He's serving eggs and bacon to a guy with a mullet and a heavy beard, when he looks out the window and sees his car, his old Dodge Dart sitting there, looking forlorn and lonely, ready for the open road. His heart falls down to his stomach, and it burns as he feels the acid dissolving all the repair that's been done over the past year.

Nate makes it a week before he escapes up to a hidden spot by the coast, and stares out at the dark ocean, thinking about how peaceful it might be to escape across it. He'd grown up next to the Atlantic, but the Pacific still fascinates him. He feels her come up next to him, and sit down softly by his side. Close, but not touching, as though she can feel the suddenly ever-widening gap between them.

"You're leaving, aren't you?" she asks, and because he can't lie to her, he doesn't say _Not if you convince me to stay_, or even simply _Thinking about it_.

"Yeah," he says, and she smiles sadly, and almost touches his hand, but doesn't.

"Good luck," she says, and his heart shatters for the millionth time, cutting through his insides and nearly causing him to actually double over in pain. Instead, he puts on a stoic face and looks at her.

"I'm sorry," he pauses, searching for the right words, "I'm just too sad. My heart's not right anymore."

She laughs a little, but there's no humor in it, "Oh, Nate," she says, touching the curls behind his ear softly, "You're not too sad, I just don't make you happy enough."

"Amy, that's not tr-" he starts, but she shakes her head off and cuts him off.

"Oh, I make you plenty happy, just not happy enough. You're a happy guy, Nate Ford, hidden under all that angst and anger and just plain sadness. And someday, you're gonna find a girl that can really dig all that out and expose all that amazingness fully. And when you meet her, I hope you give me a call and tell me all about her. I just want you to be happy."

They sit in silence for awhile, completely silent, contemplating each other and the Pacific, it's vastness seemingly trumped by the sadness radiating from two lonely figures on a hill overlooking the ocean in the middle of the Washington mist.

He eats one last silent meal at the diner, and she kisses his cheek and wishes him luck again. Then his stuff is packed into his car, and he takes one last deep breath, waves goodbye and is gone.

_But if my silence made you leave_

_Then that would be my worst mistake_

_So I will share this room with you_

_And you can have this heart to break_

Two months later, in a Los Angeles art gallery, Nate meets Maggie Collins. He's happy. He doesn't call Amy. He doesn't know why. Years later, he wonders if perhaps his heart already knew how it would end.

_So I would choose to be with you_

_As if the choice were mine to make_

_But you can make decisions too_

_And you can have this heart to break_

**I used a lot more lyrics in this chapter, but I really felt like they fit with this chapter and I just couldn't pick. I hope the lyrics didn't overwhelm the story, and I hope you weren't too anxious waiting all this time for the new chapter.**

**Also, I have an idea for another Leverage fic, more Nate!whump then straight angst, that I'm kind of really looking forward to writing a lot. But I promise I won't abandon this fic!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Oh, finally, some actual canoness! Isn't it lovely? I promise Sophie, and the actual timeline of the show, are just around the corner.**

_In every heart there is a room_

_A sanctuary safe and strong_**  
**

He meets Maggie almost completely by accident. After his year spent in Washington, with Amy, the bohemian lifestyle seems to have lost its allure, so he heads to LA and secures the first job he can, working airport security. He's not exactly a fan of the job, but he makes enough to put food on the table and gas in his car and buy a shitty little apartment.

Nate's been working there for one month, three weeks and two days (he has a slight obsession with time, and knowing how long something lasts to the minute if possible, and yes, he knows he has a problem, he has many of them and he's learned to maybe sort of deal with them), when he overhears the phone conversation.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Tomas, but the plane's been delayed by almost three hours. The pianist won't be here in time for the show," a pause while the person on the other end spoke, "Sir, I don't know where we're going to find a replacement this late. Perhaps we can just use a recording for some of the evening, until we can locate a replacement."

Nate isn't quite sure what makes him do it, but he walks up to the big, dark-haired man, trying not to curl into himself too much, and taps him on the shoulder, "Sir, uh, I get off in ten minutes, and I'm an accomplished pianist. I'd be willing to help out."

He knows it's probably a tiny lie, but he supposes that traveling across the country playing probably qualifies, and in his head, two _probably_'s made a right. So he lets the big man give him a once over, and then tells the guy taking over his shift the mundane proceedings of the day and is off on another adventure.

They have an extra tuxedo that's only a little big for Nate lying around for some reason (he doesn't ask questions, too nervous to form words beyond his name and _accomplished pianist_), so he puts it on quickly and takes his place behind the piano. Here, he is comfortable and truthful, which is sort of a nice change from his shitty apartment and his boring job and his car that barely runs but he loves like an extension of himself (so not very much).

He's two songs in when a pretty girl with blonde hair that's caught somewhere between wavy and curly and a nose that almost rivals his own in length sits down next to him on the bench without asking permission. Nate almost misses the next note, but doesn't, and she introduces herself as Maggie Collins, a new forgery expert working for IYS, the insurance agency for the bigwig that's putting on this shindig.

It's almost too much information to process, and if Nate wasn't so intrigued by this girl whose hip is pressed against his own on the bench, her voice soft despite the noise of the party, he probably would have just ignored her, or at the very least, asked her to leave. But he is, so she stays and they talk about absolutely nothing important or sad or tragic or the weather (he doesn't even really remember what the talked about, just that she was there, and her voice was clear and new and he liked her a lot), and Nate's in love before he plays the grand sweeping finale piece.

So, despite the fact that it's almost two in the morning before Nate collects his decent paycheck and leaves, he asks her for coffee and she accepts, and instead of getting coffee, they get beer and talk some more about unimportant things and at the end of the night she writes her number on an old newspaper in bright red pen and the path of Nate's life takes a left turn and he loves it. He loves her.

He does a few more gigs for Tomas Gallery and keeps his job at the airport for a while before Maggie mentions in passing that there's an opening for a new insurance investigator at IYS. Nate jumps at the chance, and is four days in and millions of dollars saved already before anyone bothers to ask if he went to college. He tells them that the extent of his higher education is just over six months of seminary.

They consider firing him for a moment, before they look and see that he's saved them millions of dollars already. So they give him a slightly bigger cubicle instead. He takes his new financial security and buys an apartment that's not shitty, and eight months after he meets her, with a steady job and a nice apartment and a better outlook on life, he asks Maggie to move in with him.

Four months later, he gets a letter on a stiff, official looking stationary informing him that his father has been arrested. Nate's not sure how long his father will be in jail, or what for, but he only barely feels guilty at the sense of relief he gets as he tucks the letter away.

A week later, he buys a small diamond ring and makes reservations at a fairly upscale restaurant. And because romance is not dead, he does it properly, down on one knee, having asked her father's permission two days before. Maggie smiles and cries a little and says yes, and the pain of his shattered heart doesn't bother him so much anymore.

Later, he's almost asleep, the new cold weight of her ring resting against his flat stomach, when she speaks, "Nate?"

"Hmm," he says in response, caught between too tired to answer and too happy not to.

"Are you happy?" she asks, fixing wide eyes up at him. Nate smiles and looks down at her.

"Ridiculously so," he says against her lips, and she matches his smile as he kisses her softly. In less then a year, they will be married.

Nate hasn't talked to Amy in over a year. Sterling will join IYS in just over a month. His father is in jail. The anniversary of his mother's death is a mere two weeks away. He has no idea what the future holds. But none of that matters to him right now. His heart doesn't hurt so badly anymore.

He will see Sophie for the first time ever in just over six months. This matters to him.

_So I would choose to be with you_

_As if the choice were mine to make_

**Not as much angst this chapter, and probably not as much in the next chapter either. But even an angst-fest like Nate Ford has a little happiness every once and a while. And of course, some of the heavy-duty angst is still to come. Keep the reviews coming, they really inspire me to get these chapters out faster.**


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